Decision comes after lawsuit by New York attorney general claimed Trump misused foundation to advance his 2016 campaign.

A lawsuit against Trump and his adult children will continue, with the New York attorney general seeking $2.8m in restitution and a 10-year ban on Trump and his three eldest children running any charities [File: Rick Wilking/Reuters]

US President Donald Trump’s namesake charitable foundation has agreed to dissolve under court supervision following a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general claiming Trump misused the foundation to advance his 2016 presidential campaign and his businesses, the attorney general said on Tuesday.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, a Democrat, said the Donald J Trump Foundation’s assets will be distributed to charities vetted by her office. The deal is subject to approval by a New York state judge.

Underwood sued Trump and his adult children Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka on June 14, after a 21-month probe that she said uncovered “extensive unlawful political coordination” between the foundation and Trump’s campaign. That lawsuit will continue, with Underwood seeking $2.8m in restitution and a 10-year ban on Trump and his three eldest children running any charities.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” Underwood said in a statement. “We’ll continue to move our suit forward to ensure that the Trump Foundation and its directors are held to account for their clear and repeated violations of state and federal law.”

Tuesday’s decision came less than a month after Justice Saliann Scarpulla of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected Trump’s motion to dismiss Underwood’s lawsuit.

The motion had argued that the US Constitution immunised Trump from Underwood’s claims alleging breach of fiduciary duty, improper self-dealing and misuse of assets belonging to the Foundation.

Trump had long pledged to dissolve the foundation and donate its remaining funds to charity, but his lawyers said they were thwarted by the attorney general’s office, which wanted oversight of the process. Foundation officials first announced their intention to shut down more than a year ago.

The White House and a lawyer for the foundation could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday’s announcement. Trump, a Republican, has previously said on Twitter that Underwood’s lawsuit was a concoction by “sleazy New York Democrats”.

Les Moonves was removed in September after allegations from women who said he subjected them to mistreatment [File: Chris Pizzello/Invision/Associated Press]

CBS has announced that former CEO Les Moonves will not receive his $120m severance package after the board of directors concluded he violated company policy and was uncooperative with an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.

The decision on Monday which came after a five-month outside investigation capped the downfall of one of television’s most influential figures, the biggest entertainment powerbroker to see his career derailed amid the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct.

A lawyer for Moonves said the board’s conclusions “are without merit” but did not say whether the former CEO would challenge it in arbitration.

Moonves was removed in September after allegations from women who said he subjected them to mistreatment including forced oral sex, groping and retaliation if they resisted.

“This is an important reminder that harassment happens everywhere and that in this moment, even someone who has been perceived as untouchable will be held accountable,” said Fatima Goss Graves, a cofounder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal assistance to victims of assault, harassment or abuse.

“I hope other corporations are learning that lesson.”

US gymnastics team in Qatar after sex abuse scandal

New York-based CBS Corporation said at the time of Moonves’ departure that it had set aside $120m in severance for him but warned that he would not get the money if the board concluded it had cause to terminate him.

“We have determined that there are grounds to terminate for cause, including his willful and material misfeasance, violation of company policies and breach of his employment contract, as well as his willful failure to cooperate fully with the company’s investigation,” the CBS said in a statement.

The board did not provide details. Earlier this month, The New York Times said a draft report from the outside investigation found that Moonves deleted numerous text messages and was “evasive and untruthful at times”.

Andrew Levander, a lawyer for Moonves, said his client “vehemently denies any non-consensual sexual relations and cooperated extensively and fully with investigators.”

“Consistent with the pattern of leaks that have permeated this ‘process’, the press was informed of these baseless conclusions before Mr Moonves, further damaging his name, reputation, career and legacy,” Levander said.

Moonves had been widely admired for turning around the fortunes of CBS when he took over as entertainment chief in 1995 with hits such as Two and a Half Men and Survivor.

He was also one of the highest-paid executives in the nation, making about $70m in each of the past two years.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents four women who have accused Moonves of misconduct, called on CBS to publicly release the details of the investigators’ findings and compensate those with provable misconduct claims.

“The public has a right to know who at CBS was aware of Mr Moonves’ alleged misconduct and when they knew of it,” said Allred, whose clients all spoke to the investigators.

“Instead of keeping this money and rewarding their corporation for Mr Moonves’ alleged misconduct, they should share these many millions with those who can prove that they are victims.”

Three major figures at CBS have lost their jobs over misconduct allegations: Moonves, 60 Minutes top executive Jeff Fager, and news anchor Charlie Rose.

In a move criticised by women’s rights activists, CBS had previously said Moonves would stay on as an adviser for up to two years, providing him with office and security services. The board did not say whether that decision remained in effect.

Shaima Swileh’s husband Ali Hassan appealed to the US State Department on Monday to expedite his wife’s application for a waiver so she could say goodbye to their dying son, Abdulla.

“My wife is calling me every day, wanting to kiss and hold her son for one last time,” the 22-year-old US national said as he broke down in tears. “Time is running out. Please help us get my family together again.”

Abdulla has a rare degenerative brain disease and may not be able to withstand life support for much longer, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement last week.

Swileh’s visa was rejected last year because of the travel ban, which has been dubbed the “Muslim ban” by many, under which the Trump administration imposed restrictions on people from several Muslim-majority countries.

The 21-year-old mother, who lives in Egypt, applied for a waiver, but has been waiting to hear back for more than a year, despite repeated requests to expedite her case, CAIR said.

“Now we see the Muslim ban’s effect in the most dehumanising way,” said Basim Elkarra, a campaigner at CAIR, on Monday.

“We are calling on the Department of State to issue a Muslim ban waiver, to allow Shaima Swileh, the wife of a US citizen, the mother of a US citizen, to hold her child one last time and to allow her to mourn with dignity.”

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, Hassan said Abdulla would not survive a journey to Egypt to see Swileh.

The couple met and married in Yemen, according to the Chronicle. Their son was born in Yemen, nearly two years after the country’s civil war began.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished country to the verge of famine, prompting the United Nations to call the situation there “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. Rights groups and a war monitor have put the death toll at more than 60,000.

Swileh left Yemen for Egypt when Abdulla was eight months old. Hassan met her in Cairo and obtained travel documents for his son from the US embassy, the Chronicle said.

He was forced to leave Swileh and travel to his hometown of Stockton, California because of Abdulla’s deteriorating condition.

The State Department does award waivers, but very rarely. It has declined to comment on the case.

In addition to nationals of Yemen, the third version of Trump administration’s travel ban prohibits entry to the US by most people from Iran, Libya, Somalia and Syria. It also affects visitors from North Korea and some travellers from Venezuela.

Rights groups sought to overturn the ban in the US Supreme Court, claiming it was biased against Muslims. But the top court rejected the petition in June.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

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Butina becomes the first Russian to be convicted of working to shape US policy during the 2016 election campaign.

Butina was charged in July with acting as an agent of Russia [Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via Reuters]

A woman accused of acting as a Russian agent to infiltrate a powerful gun lobby group and influence the United States’ policy towards Moscow has pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy.

Maria Butina, a former graduate student at the American University in Washington who had publicly advocated for gun rights, changed her plea from not guilty to guilty during a hearing on Thursday.

The 30-year-old was charged in July with acting as an agent of the Russian government and conspiracy to take actions on behalf of Moscow.

Prosecutors accused Butina of working with a Russian official and two US citizens in trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association (NRA), a group closely aligned with Republican politicians including US President Donald Trump, and sway Washington’s policy towards Moscow.

Butina’s lawyers previously identified the Russian official as Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who was targeted with US Treasury Department sanctions in April.

One of the two Americans cited in the prosecution’s criminal complaint was Paul Erickson, a conservative US political activist who was dating Butina.

‘Fabricated’

After she was charged, Russia labelled the case against Butina as “fabricated” and called for her release.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about Butina on Tuesday in Moscow, a day after US court filings indicated she would plead guilty in Washington.

“She risks 15 years in jail. For what?” Putin asked. “…I asked all the heads of our intelligence services what is going on. Nobody knows anything about her.”

The prosecutors in the Butina case are not from the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 US election and whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow to help him win.

The complaint against Butina, however, did not explicitly mention Trump’s campaign.

Nevertheless, with a guilty plea, Butina became the first Russian citizen to be convicted of working to shape US policy in the time period spanning the 2016 election campaign.

Mueller has brought criminal charges against a series of Russian individuals and entities but those cases are still pending.

While Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow, Russia, in turn, has also denied interfering in the US politics.

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges that he paid two women to keep quiet about past relationships with Trump.

Prosecutors say the hush money payments violated campaign finance laws and they concurred with Cohen’s assertion that the payments were directed by Trump [Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP]

Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer for US President Donald Trump, was sentenced to a total of three years in prison on Wednesday for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump’s 2016 election campaign and lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

US District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan sentenced Cohen to three years for the payments, which violated campaign finance law, and to two months for the false statements to Congress. The two terms will run concurrently.

Judge Pauley said Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors “does not wipe the slate clean” of his crimes. He also said that Cohen “appears to have lost his moral compass” and that lawyer “should have known better”.

Cohen pleaded guilty in August to charges by federal prosecutors in New York that, just before the election, he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 and helped arrange a $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal so the women would keep quiet about their past relationships with President Donald Trump, who is married. Trump denies having the affairs.

Cohen also admitted to unrelated charges of tax evasion and making false statements to banks.

Prosecutors say the hush money payments violated campaign finance laws and they concurred with Cohen’s assertion that the payments were directed by Trump, implicating Trump in a possible campaign finance law violation.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Trump denied the payments were campaign contributions. “If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did,” he said.

Federal law requires that the contribution of “anything of value” to a campaign must be disclosed and that an individual donation cannot exceed $2,700.

Cohen also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of lying to Congress brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The sentencing caps the stunning about-face of a lawyer who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump but has now directly implicated the president in criminal conduct.

Trump has denied any collusion with Russia and has accused Mueller’s team of pressuring his former aides to lie about him, his campaign and his business dealings. Russia has denied US allegations of interfering in the election to help Trump.

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has argued the hush payments cannot be considered campaign finance violations because they were made to protect Trump’s reputation and would have been made even if he had not been a presidential candidate.

‘Substantial term’

Although Cohen asked in a November 30 court filing to be given no prison time based on his assistance in the investigation, prosecutors asked on Friday for Cohen to be given a “substantial term of imprisonment” for his crimes, with only a “modest” reduction to the roughly four to five-year term they say he faces under sentencing guidelines.

They said Cohen declined to sign a formal cooperation agreement, which would have required him to be fully debriefed about his entire criminal history and his knowledge of others’ crimes. His refusal to cooperate fully, they said, limited his credibility as a witness.

In his guilty plea to Mueller’s charge, Cohen admitted he lied to Congress about the timeline for discussions of plans for real estate businessman Trump’s skyscraper in Moscow.

He said in written testimony to two committees that the talks ended in January 2016, before the first contests to select the Republican presidential candidate, when they actually continued until June 2016, after Trump clinched the Republican nomination.

Mueller’s sentencing recommendation was more generous, saying Cohen had provided valuable information about contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. He recommended any sentence for lying to Congress be served concurrently with Cohen’s sentence on the charges in New York.

Cohen will tell ‘all’ about Trump

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, an adviser to Cohen said the lawyer will “state publicly all he knows” about Trump after Mueller completes his investigation.

Lanny Davis said Cohen “continues to tell the truth about Donald Trump’s misconduct over the years”.

Davis, who was previously a lawyer for Cohen, said he will assist the former political fixer in testifying before any Congressional committee “interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lies”.

Cohen has been ordered to turn himself in to begin his prison sentence on March 6.

Michael Kovrig was arrested in Beijing days after the detention in Canada of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

A man holds a sign calling on China to release Wang Bingzhang and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig [Lindsey Wasson/Reuters]

Chinese authorities are questioning former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig – detained days after the arrest in Canada of a Chinese businesswoman – on suspicion of engaging in activities that harmed China’s national security.

State-run Beijing News said on Wednesday that Kovrig, who works for the International Crisis Group (ICG), had become the subject of an investigation by the Beijing State Security Bureau.

He was detained after police in Canada arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies on December 1 at the request of US authorities, infuriating Beijing.

The Canadian government has said it saw no explicit link to the Huawei case.

“Canadian citizen Michael John Kovrig was on December 10 investigated in accordance with the law by the Beijing State Security Bureau on suspicion of engaging in activities that harm China’s state security,” the newspaper said in a brief report.

The case continues to be under investigation, it added, without elaborating.

Accusations of harming state security could cover a wide range of suspected crimes, and in China are often very vague when first levelled.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa was engaging with Chinese officials about the case, which in the short term at least looks to have hurt his government’s bid to forge closer trade ties with China.

“This is obviously an issue that we are taking very seriously and it is ongoing,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.

Alleged spy?

The ICG, a think-tank focused on conflict resolution, said in an earlier statement Kovrig was detained by security officials in Beijing on Monday night.

Diplomats in China said the apparent involvement of the secretive state security ministry, which engages in domestic counter-espionage work, among other things, suggests the government could be looking at levelling accusations of spying.

However, ICG President and Chief Executive Robert Malley said the group did not engage in such activity.

“I don’t want to speculate as to what’s behind it but I am prepared to be categorical about what’s not behind it, and what’s not behind it is any illegal activity or endangering of Chinese national security,” Malley told Reuters news agency.

“Everything we do is transparent, it’s on our website. We don’t engage in secretive work, in confidential work.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang said he had nothing he could say on the details of the case. He said the ICG was not registered in China as a non-government organisation and Kovrig could have broken Chinese law.

“If they are not registered and their workers are in China undertaking activities, then that’s already outside of, and breaking, the law, revised just last year, on the management of overseas non-governmental organisations operating in China,” Lu said.

‘No coincidences’

William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International’s East Asia Regional Office in Hong Kong, said Kovrig’s detention was alarming, especially as it appeared to be the first time the law has been used to detain a foreign NGO worker.

“We need to wait for the official explanation from the Chinese side, but this detention could have a chilling effect on the foreign NGO and business communities in terms of their feeling safe while travelling in China,” he said.

Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s former ambassador to China, was asked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday whether the Kovrig detention was a coincidence after the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

“In China, there are no coincidences … If they want to send you a message, they will send you a message,” he said.

A Western diplomat in China, who asked not to be identified, was even more blunt: “This is a political kidnapping.”

China had threatened severe consequences unless Canada released Meng immediately and analysts have said retaliation for the arrest was likely.

Meng was granted bail by a Canadian court on Tuesday, 10 days after her arrest in Vancouver – on US claims that she misled multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions – caused a diplomatic dispute.

Journalists from Myanmar, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and a newspaper in the US named as 2018’s ‘Guardians’ of truth.

Time magazine has named a newspaper and four journalists, including Washington Post’s murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, as its Person of the Year.

The Capital Gazette in the US state of Maryland’s Annapolis, two Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, as well as Khashoggi, were recognised as “Guardians” of truth, Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal announced on Tuesday.

“They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world – as of December 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 – who risk all to tell the story of our time,” Felsenthal wrote in an essay titled The Guardians and the War on Truth.

Time selected them “for taking great risks in pursuit of greater truths, for the imperfect but essential quest for facts that are central to civil discourse, for speaking up and speaking out”.

The nominees

Khashoggi, who was killed two months ago at the Saudi consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul, is the first person to be nominated by the magazine post-mortem, Felsenthal said.

“But it’s also very rare that a person’s influence grows so immensely in death,” he said of Khashoggi. “His murder has prompted a global reassessment of the Saudi crown prince and a really long-overdue look at the devastating war in Yemen.”

The two Reuters journalists have been imprisoned for nearly a year in Myanmar after investigating a massacre of Rohingya.

She told Al Jazeera from Manila the nomination showed “how difficult it is to be a journalist”.

“This year we can’t get away from the impunity and the brutal killing of Khashoggi, the jailing of the Reuters journalists and the challenges we face here [in the Philippines], what’s happening in the United States,” she said.

“Journalists are under attack both online and in the real world and these real-world dangers are something we have to fight to just be able to do our jobs.”

In her own case, she said “the law had been weaponised” against Rappler. She vowed to keep on fighting in court.

Time has made the designation every year since 1927. The magazine says the Person of the Year title is not necessarily an honour or award, but representative of the influence the person – or idea – has had on the news within the past year – for better or worse.

US president repeats threat to shut down the government if Democrats don’t agree to fund wall on southern border.

It was the first meeting time Trump met top Democrats since their party won control of the House of Representatives in November 6 midterm elections [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]

US President Donald Trump openly fought with the top two Democratic politicians at an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday about government funding, throwing into question whether a deal was possible before a deadline later this month.

In a rare public argument, Trump bickered with US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi about funding for his proposed border wall.

“If we don’t get what we want, one way or the other – whether it’s through you, through a military, through anything you want to call – I will shut down the government,” Trump said as the heated argument drew near a close.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country,” he said before reporters left the room.

Congress is seeking to finalise spending before some federal government funding expires on December 21. While Trump’s fellow Republicans control both the House and the Senate until next month, Democratic support is needed to pass any spending legislation.

The president has called for $5bn to fund the barrier along the US-Mexico border, a campaign promise that he has made into a focal point. He ended the argument by saying he was willing to make good on his repeated threat to shut down the federal government over the issue.

In a poll related on Tuesday by NPR/PBS NewsHour and Marist Poll, 57 percent of Americans said Trump should compromise on the wall to avoid a government shutdown. About 36 percent said he should not.

‘Trump shutdown’

Tuesday’s spat was the first time Trump met Pelosi and Schumer since the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in the November 6 congressional elections – a rocky start to the relationship the White House will have with the opposition party, with which it needs to deal to advance any priorities.

The fight kicked off when Pelosi told Trump that Americans did not want to see a “Trump shutdown,” touching a nerve. Trump cut off Pelosi, arguing that he could not advance a funding bill without Democratic votes in the Senate.

“I don’t think we should have a debate in front of the press on this,” Pelosi said.

“We’re doing this in a very friendly manner,” Trump said, as Vice President Mike Pence sat beside him, silent and stony-faced.

Trump has threatened to shut down the government if he doesn’t receive his border wall funding [Mark Wilson/Getty Images/AFP]

Senior White House staff watched the melee from the corners of the room, among them Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly, immigration adviser Stephen Miller, and Shahira Knight, his legislative director.

Then Schumer brought up the “Pinocchios” that Trump had been awarded by the Washington Post for misstatements on the issue and accused him of wanting to get his own way.

“Let’s call a halt to this,” Pelosi said as the two New Yorkers went at it.

“It’s not bad, Nancy – it’s called transparency,” Trump said.

When Pelosi brought up Republican election losses in the House, Trump quickly retorted that his party won the Senate.

“When the president brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in real trouble,” Schumer said to the astonished press capturing the back-and-forth.

Trump says military will build wall if there’s no funding

Trump has sought to sow fear over thousands of migrants and refugees who have recently arrived at the border as part of an exodus, initially dubbed the Central American caravan. More than 6,000 people are currently waiting in Tijuana to file for asylum in the US. Rights groups estimate many will have to wait up to two months before being allowed in the US to submit their claims.

Many of the refugees and migrants have told Al Jazeera they are fleeing violence, poverty and political persecution.

Trump has sent more than 5,000 troops to the border to offer logistic support to border patrol agents. The Department of Defense approved a plan to extend the deployment of about 4,000 active-duty troops through January.

Prior to Tuesday’s public spat, Trump said the military would build his promised border wall if Congress did not sign off his funding proposal.

It was unclear how Trump would try to use the US Department of Defense to build the wall, given that defence and military construction appropriation bills were signed into law for the 2019 fiscal year without any wall funding.

Move sets up a possible showdown later this month over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.

Chuck Schumer says the $1.6bn Democrats have said they would agree to could not be used for Trump’s border wall [Reuters]

US Congress on Thursday approved a two-week stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown, setting up a potential showdown over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall later this month.

Without action by Congress, funding for several federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, State Department and Department of Homeland Security, had been set to expire this week. The stopgap bill extends funding through December 21.

Before the stopgap bill expires, the Republican-led Congress is expected to consider a $450bn bill to fund the departments through the fiscal year that ends next September 30.

Trump has demanded $5bn this year as part of his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico that Democrats argue would be ineffective at keeping out undocumented immigrants and illicit drugs.

Instead, Democrats want to continue improving less costly fencing and employing high-tech instruments to detect irregular border crossings. They have agreed to include $1.6bn for additional border security.

“Let me be clear: the $1.6bn cannot be used to construct any part of President Trump’s 30-foot-tall concrete border wall. It can only be used for fencing, using technology currently deployed at the border, and only where the experts say fencing is appropriate and makes sense,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday.

Trump has threatened to force a partial government shutdown if Congress does not give him the money he wants for the wall.